Opinion(Jeremy Rifkin, American economist, writer, political advisor, activist, author of The Empathic Civilization: Rethinking Human Nature in the Biosphere Era): “‘Empathy,’ explains Rifkin, ‘conjures up active engagement – the willingness of an observer to become part of another’s experience, to share the feeling of that experience.’…

“Biologists and cognitive neuroscientists are discovering mirror-neurons–the so-called empathy neurons–that allow human beings and other species to feel and experience another’s situation as if it were one’s own. We are, it appears, the most social of animals and seek intimate participation and companionship with our fellows. …

“By extending the central nervous system of each individual and the society as a whole, communication revolutions provide an evermore inclusive playing field for empathy to mature and consciousness to expand. For example, during the period of the great hydraulic agricultural civilizations characterized by script and theological consciousness, empathic sensitivity broadened from tribal blood ties to associational ties based on common religious affiliation. Jews came to empathize with Jews, Christians with Christians, Muslims with Muslims, etc. In the first industrial revolution characterized by print and ideological consciousness, empathic sensibility extended to national borders, with Americans empathizing with Americans, Germans with Germans, Japanese with Japanese and so on. In the second industrial revolution, characterized by electronic communication and psychological consciousness, individuals began to identify with like-minded others.

Today, we are on the cusp of another historic convergence of energy and communication–a third industrial revolution–that could extend empathic sensibility to the biosphere itself and all of life on Earth.”

My Comment: Undoubtedly, we will continue to develop in this direction according to the plan of Nature. The only question is whether we will overcome egoism driven by blows or repressing it consciously.
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In the News (from BBC News): “The home of the ancient Greek gods is snow-capped and steep and the road that winds its way up the slopes of Mount Olympus leads through lush, fertile forest. But the vegetation is dotted with bare patches – precious trees ripped away.

“This is now the site of some of the worst illegal logging in Greece. The practice has risen here by more than 300% in the past year since a new tax pushed up the price of heating oil by a third.

Many people are now unable to afford heating oil, instead turning to wood to heat their homes.”

My Comment: Hunger and cold will force people to do anything. Could we require them to refrain from providing themselves with the minimum necessities?!
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Question: How can individuality be retained in an integral world?

Answer: Egoism does not die, it constantly fuels the “we,” and your “we” always keeps growing. Then you will discover that your egoism keeps constantly growing.

As a result of common egoistic development over thousands of years, we have come to a certain level of fulfillment and have become round. And now we are a society which does not wish to think about anything, a society where drugs and entertainment rule, and we do not need anything else.

As soon as you begin to perceive the integral society and include yourself in it, a new kind of egoism appears, “round” egoism, which grows when your individual egoism pushes it up towards the next level.

Today, many people feel like they are losing their individuality because nature nullifies it, and people find that they are lost; they do not know who they are, what they are, and what their purpose is. Today they can no longer realize themselves as they did in the past before egoism became round; today there is nothing they can realize themselves with.

This is why the generation of the last 40-50 years is considered to be the lost generation. It is called that way because egoism has stopped growing; people do not feel the need to make a family, to have children. Why should I strive towards anything, make plans, discover new planets, as if there were anything out there. Desire has disappeared, egoism has stopped growing; it has become round.

Begin to adapt yourselves within this new form of egoism and you will see how it will begin to grow within you, but in a round way, the circle will either begin to expand or rise. This is our next stage. In other words, the form of egoism has changed, it has become global and integral; further growth will continue and it will be beautiful.

We will begin to see absolutely new forces and new interconnections in nature, we will be attaining nature, and we will suddenly discover fields, laws, and forms Einstein could only have dreamt of.

The new mechanism of feelings and mind will enable a person to feel all of nature holistically, see its entire diversity, and perceive in it the forces that govern everything, the network of forces, which he will discover himself. He will create an analog of the common nature inside himself; he will begin to delve into all of its layers. This is a completely new science, about which little is written, the next inner stage of development.

Humanity will discover this stage of development. And once it begins to develop altruistically, increasingly strengthening the inner connection between them where gradual unification, mutual feelings, and understanding take place, which will continue until this common network of interconnection turns into a completely analog connection, then we will lose the perception of time.

This is the entrance into the field of forces where mind and feelings exist and matter does not. Now we only perceive it in our egoistic senses. As soon as egoism fully transitions to altruism, a full interconnection between us, the perception of the existence of matter will disappear.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12

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In the News (from Bloomberg): “The euro-area jobless rate rose to a record in November as the fiscal crisis and tougher austerity measures deepened Europe’s economic troubles.

“Unemployment in the 17-nation region rose to 11.8 percent from 11.7 percent in October, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That’s the highest since the data series started in 1995 and in line with the median estimate of 27 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.”

My Comment: We must agree that there is no returning to the consumer society, and the sooner we switch to a new integral thinking (reasonable consumption, equal sharing, closure of all the “excess” enterprises, the establishment of a rational economy, without anything extra), the less we will lose in transitioning to the new phase of development.
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In the News (from The Province): “Teachers have flocked to a Utah firearms training programme to teach them how to tackle an armed assault like the Sandy Hook massacre, which left 20 children and six teachers dead earlier this month.

“More than 200 teachers responded to the Mass Violence Response Training course offered by the Utah Shooting Sports Council, a week after the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful national gun lobby group, launched a controversial campaign to put armed guards in every school in America.

“Utah is one of two states in America that allows licensed teachers to carry concealed firearms on school premises.”

My Comment: Egoism develops, satisfaction diminishes, frustration and stress grow; so, it’s not surprising that this kind of shooting will occur more often if no attention is paid to people changing by means of integral education; no laws will be able to restrict similar incidents.
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Question: You said that the year 2013 will be a year of big changes. I would like to hear from you some kind of blessings, concerning this year.

Answer: I think that this year will pass relatively quietly in the world. The world will delay the end. The economic fall will continue, but in a slower manner; governments will print money, all kinds of “bubbles” will be inflated, and in this way the collapse will be prevented.

But we need to understand that this period is specifically good for us to reorganize, to continue the unity, to prepare intensively for training and good dissemination, so that we will learn to speak correctly to the public and will be able to reach them according to their level and be near them. We must show people that there is a completely different way of development and it is the only way that is correct, realistic, and unique so that they will understand that there is no other way, and then they will see that we are really offering them the only choice.

We don’t need to compete with others and to convince people that we are right, as the Soviet regime did in the past with its claim that “the victory of communism is unavoidable, because it is right.” We just need to work on ourselves, on the movement towards the people, and gradually we will win.

Thus our workshops need to be closer to the public, to people. It doesn’t mean that we are declining. If a person can explain lofty things simply, it is a sign that he understands them and that they live within him. He translates them from the language of the book to his inner language, and then brings it to others in a simple language. Thus, it is very important for us to position ourselves in this way in order to lower it to a simple explanation.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/30/12

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Opinion (Roger B. Myerson, American economist and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics, author of Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict): “The nature of the financial crisis, the war in Iraq, democracy in Russia, endless military conflicts and terrorist attacks, cures for depression, the presidential election … all these are games, which humanity has been playing for centuries. …

“So our lives are—the game. To win, you just need to follow the rules. A game is a process that involves two or more participants. Working in teams, shopping, negotiations, conflict and war… . Everyone wants to realize his own interests and uses a special strategy. … Game theory studies general rules that will reduce stress and facilitate peace.”

My Comment: Kabbalah views everything that happens as a game because without imagining the future state, it is impossible to reach it. I often talk about this in class and always cite the example of children who develop due to games. But a game should be carried out as by children, according to the rules of nature. In children it happens instinctively, but in adults only under the laws of development that Kabbalah reveals.
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Studies (from ScienceDaily): “Consumers found that satisfaction with ‘experiential purchases’ – from massages to family vacations – starts high and increases over time. In contrast, spending money on material things feels good at first, but actually makes people less happy in the end, says Thomas Gilovich, Cornell University professor of psychology and Travis J. Carter, Cornell Ph.D.

“When it comes to material things, Gilovich and Carter found shoppers often second-guess their original buying decisions, comparing what they bought to other people’s purchases – or to better deals they missed.

“But buying experiences provides greater satisfaction as time goes on, in part because of selective memory and because a consumer’s experience is highly subjective, making it much harder to make negative comparisons. Consumers also find it easier to decide on experiences, spending money on the first option that meets a set of expectations rather than painstakingly comparing all options.”

My Comment: The desire to acquire things starts to cool down and is replaced by the desire to feel; business people should take it into account! But the desire to feel will begin to develop into the desire for higher feelings, and people will inevitably turn to Kabbalah.
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In the News (from Iowa State University): “The Media Violence Commission’s research-based report concludes that the research clearly shows that media violence consumption increases the relative risk of aggression, defined as intentional harm to another person that could be verbal, relational, or physical. …

“In their report, the commission wrote that aside from being sources of imitation, violent images — such as scenes in movies, games or pictures in comic books — act as triggers for activating aggressive thoughts and feelings already stored in memory. If these aggressive thoughts and feelings are activated over and over again because of repeated exposure to media violence, they become chronically accessible, and thus more likely to influence behavior. …

“While most public policy has focused on restricting children’s access to violent media, the commission found that approach to have significant political and legal challenges in many countries. For that reason, it recommends putting efforts into improving media ratings, classifications, and public education about the effects of media on children.

“‘Improving media ratings really has two pieces. One is that the media ratings themselves need to be done by an independent entity — meaning, not by an industry-influenced or controlled system,’ said Anderson, himself a leading researcher of the effects of violent media on children. ‘They need to be ratings that have some scientific validity to them.’”

My Comment: Since these media are beneficial to many, it is much more difficult to ban them in our society than smoking. The environment forms a child, but even parents cannot talk in the organized manner against the media that destroy their children and all the efforts of parents to instill good education. Are WHO and UNESCO opposed to these media? Did anyone put forward such proposals in the UN? There is one answer—we cannot resist such media because we ourselves are no different!

According to Kabbalah, a person never commits his own acts, but only what society, his surroundings, his environment, dictate to him. That is why by choosing the environment, a person completely determines his actions, which are the result of the influence of the environment. That is, one can determine his actions only through the environment in which he exists. And his free will is only in choosing the environment. (See Baal HaSulam, “Freedom of Will”)
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In the News (from PLOS.org): “On 22 February 2011, Christchurch New Zealand (population 367,700) experienced a devastating earthquake, causing extensive damage and killing one hundred and eighty-five people. The earthquake and aftershocks occurred between the 2009 and 2011 waves of a longitudinal probability sample conducted in New Zealand, enabling us to examine how a natural disaster of this magnitude affected deeply held commitments and global ratings of personal health, depending on earthquake exposure. We first investigated whether the earthquake-affected were more likely to believe in God. Consistent with the Religious Comfort Hypothesis, religious faith increased among the earthquake-affected, despite an overall decline in religious faith elsewhere. This result offers the first population-level demonstration that secular people turn to religion at times of natural crisis. We then examined whether religious affiliation was associated with differences in subjective ratings of personal health. We found no evidence for superior buffering from having religious faith. Among those affected by the earthquake, however, a loss of faith was associated with significant subjective health declines. Those who lost faith elsewhere in the country did not experience similar health declines. Our findings suggest that religious conversion after a natural disaster is unlikely to improve subjective well-being, yet upholding faith might be an important step on the road to recovery.”

My Comment: Fear, uncertainty, and lack of confidence gave rise to religious feelings and sustained religions. If it were not for them and if there were no death, there would be no religion—the mass belief in the unprovable. Kabbalah refutes the religious attitude towards the world. There is Nature and its laws; this is an upper force. And all the feelings that people feel toward the Creator and attribute to Him originate from sensations that are peculiar to man, and to man alone; it is similar to how we attribute certain thoughts and feelings to animals.
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